ParentsNext - after COVID-19
This blog from @simonecasey takes a look at the usefulness of ParentsNext in the context of the post COVID unemployment crisis. COVID has amplified the fact that parenting is necessary and demanding work and that single mothers experience labour market vulnerability because of the structural barriers to secure and flexible jobs. The issue is not so much getting them ready to work before their children reach school-age, but creating jobs that are secure and flexible enough to support the needs of single parents. The government should stop policing them in ParentsNext and focus on strategies for a full employment recovery.
On 28 September Mutual Obligations were switched back on and labour market programs like ParentsNext will still cause distress to parents with young children. Parents will once again be subject to stressful payment suspensions for failing to attend ‘storytime’ and other activities that caused controversy when ParentsNext was expanded in 2018.
The ParentsNext program (estimated to cost $90 million last financial year) began as a pilot in 2016 and was expanded across Australia in July 2018 in regions identified as having high parental unemployment rates. Since then, over 82,000 single parents have been required to meet with ParentsNext providers to identify activities (like storytime) that might help them get a job when their children reach school age.
ParentsNext was beset with controversy as the ParentsNext Senate Inquiry heard in March 2019, parents were being penalised when they overlooked reporting attendance at activities like storytime. In the early days one in five ParentsNext participants had their payment suspended,and some ParentsNext providers reported concern that the burden of teaching parents to adopt self-reporting requirements interfered with their capacity to actually help them.
The Senate Inquiry also heard about intrusive surveillance that providers used to check-up on parents, breaches of privacy and coercion in signing job plans. It also heard about a complaint submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee about the discriminatory targeting of Indigenous single mothers. The family and domestic violence sector expressed concerns that payment suspensions were traumatising women recovering from financial abuse because so many single mothers in ParentsNext had experienced DV.
Public interest in ParentsNext waned until the ABC drew attention to the lived experience of Sue an Indigenous woman whose payment was cancelled for failing to attend an initial appointment with seven children; and Mel a homeless mother of four, who was not given an exemption. The ABC interviewed ParentsNext workers who alleged that providers were engaged in questionable practices and using program rules to improve their financial gains from delivering the program.
Despite the Senate Committee’s recommendations for a complete overhaul, the Department of Employment responded with policy updates that clarified program intention and activity scheduling rules. This means very little has changed for the parents in ParentsNext. My routine scans of ParentsNext Facebook groups shows that significant numbers of parents remained stressed-out about having to meet with ParentsNext providers, lose sleep over the online reporting requirements and bemoan the pointlessness of the program. Parents report they are signed up for the program even when they are already studying, recent work experience or have children with high needs.
There is also evidence that ParentsNext is causing harm to the families it is supposed to be helping. For example, data released by the Department of Employment shows that 732 parents with vulnerabilities (i.e. who identify as Indigenous, CALD, homeless and/or with a disability) had their payment cancelled for falling foul of ParentsNext participation rules.
Table 1 - ParentsNext payment cancellations 31 August 2019
(Authors analysis compiled from Senate Estimates Data 31 August 2019, 31 December 2019)
COVID-19 caused changes
COVID-19 social distancing led to a government decision to move program delivery to telephone or video conferencing. As of 28 September, parents will continue to be able to meet with ParentsNext providers over the phone or online, but they will still required to participate in activities and report online to demonstrate that they have done so. Bizarrely it has been reported they will no longer be able to use ‘playgroup’ as this nominated activity due to new rules that might reflect social distancing requirements.
There are big questions about the usefulness of the support provided by ParentsNext. There will be some in the ParentsNext provider sector who will argue that ParentsNext is a ‘good’ program because it connects ‘at risk’ parents to support. But this does not negate the fact that ParentsNext is problematic because parenting is work and parents should not be subject to stressful payment suspensions when they can’t meet the program’s requirements.
The COVID school closures and work from home provisions have amplified the fact that this parenting work is necessary and demanding. Working single mothers have been unfairly impacted by COVID, because they were amongst those who were the first to lose their jobs either due to their precariaty, or so they could care for their children. So the real problem here is access to jobs that are secure yet flexible enough to accommodate the caring responsibilities of single mothers and affordable child care.
Although the contracts for ParentsNext providers have been renewed for a further two years, it is still time that ParentsNext is reformed once and for all so that scarce government resources can be better directed at parents who actually need and want help. In the past it has been teen parents that benefited from the Helping Young Parents (HYP) program that predated ParentsNext. As experts in child and family welfare sector have argued, a better program can be designed in partnership with single mothers so that does not harm those it is intended to help.